In the manufacture of vinyl floor and wall coverings or tiles, normally a flat base layer or substrate, customarily a felted or matted fibrous sheet, is coated with a vinyl resinous composition which usually contains a foaming agent. The vinyl resin coated base or substrate is then gelled by thermal treatment and may be printed with a decorative pattern. The surface resulting vinyl resin coated base is provided with yet another vinyl resin layer commonly referred to as a vinyl resin wear layer.
An alternative method of vinyl floor covering manufacture involves forming into sheet form mixtures of a vinyl resin such as vinyl chloride polymer, filler and plasticizer.
In both instances, it is frequently desired to provide the vinyl floor covering or vinyl resin wear layer with an acrylated urethane top-coat since it is known to possess highly desirable physical and chemical protective characteristics. Unfortunately, it has been found that in many instances the bond between the vinyl resin layer and the acrylated polyurethane is not as strong or as permanent as desired.
It is an object of the invention to provide a method whereby the adhesive strength of the bond between the acrylated polyurethane resin and the vinyl resin layer is significantly improved.
It is also an object of the invention to provide vinyl floor covering coated with acrylated polyurethane composition exhibiting improved adhesion at the interface of the cured acrylated polyurethane coating layer and the vinyl resin layer.